In the context of the Social Sciences and Humanities Open Cloud - SSHOC project realising the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) part of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), Task 5.2 Hosting and sharing data repositories (T5.2) has worked towards adjusting and enhancing the Dataverse repository software to the needs of the SSH research communities. Dataverse is an open-source, community-driven data repository software that has been tailored to serve the SSH communities. This effort led to the ‘Archive in a box’ solution and relevant documentation for a downloadable installation in localised platforms, that offers the opportunity for the creation of an online repository. The current document reports on the governance and sustainability of the ‘Archive in the box’ repository software, exploring the effect this would have for the governance and sustainability of services using it. Further reporting on the process of investigating governance and sustainability of potential services using the software, this document provides information with regards to a) the creation of a proof of concept, b) discussions for further uptake, and c) its potential onboarding in the EOSC, in alignment with SSHOC’s overall governance and sustainability planning. The work delivered under T5.2 includes investigating the governance and sustainability for the ‘Archive in a box’ software and services using it. This work aspires to prove the point of a bottom-up, SSH- community led approach in supporting data repositories, as well as being the starting point for further collaboration between ERICs in this respect.

Approved by EC - 04 May 2022